On 10/6/02 7:25:00 PM, Timothy Galvin
wrote:
>One of the
>biggest misleader of the truth
>in our present day is the
>american news media. The is
>definitely a bias in todays
>reporting of the news in our
>country. This bias is not
>only limited to the reporting
>of politics, but also in our
>involvement in other
>countries.

I would suggest that in order to even
make sense of the term "bias" we need to
assume an objective truth which is being
"distorted" or "slanted" in some way.

I also find it extremely interesting that not
only do most people find the news
biased, but that they find it biased in
opposite ways, i.e. political liberals detect
conservative bias while conservatives
detect liberal bias. Yet it seems that in
principle, one could study the news in a
rigorous, impartial, scientific way
(perhaps agreed upon by both liberal and
conservative advisors) and come up with
some reasonble conclusion which would
settle the matter.

By the way, we'll tackle epistemological
problems concerning the news, historical
and political truths, etc., later in the term.

Prof. Borrowdale